It's Hard to Leave
by Catherine E. Grant
Summary: "It's hard to leave you all behind" (c) Judith Durham. The story is mine. Rachel has crossed over yet lingers to say goodbye in her own veyr special way.


IT'S HARD TO LEAVE  
Author: Catherine E. Grant (avatar_31@angelfire.com)  
  
Disclaimer: The characters all belong to Hal McElroy and Southern Star, they aren't mine whatsoever how much I try to bribe Santa. The lyrics are from Judith Durham's beautiful song "It's Hard to Leave," which can be found on her 1994 album "Let me Find love" or the 1997 album "Future Road" by Judith Durham and The Seekers. Please take the time to hunt up one of these albums, I suggest the first one as it is a better showcase of Judith's talent. I receive no profit from this fan fic or indeed from any fan fic piece that I have written or will write. I'm a sad case. I do it for the fun of it. Now if that isn't pitiful, what is?  
  
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IT'S HARD TO LEAVE  
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"It's hard to leave you all behind,  
Those loving smiles, so sweet and kind,  
I love you all, you're part of me,   
With you I leave the heart of me..."  
  
Sadly I watch you go about your daily duties, shoulders hung with grief and eyes reddened from grieving. Countless cheeks bear the tracks of countless tears. I only wish I could smooth away the pain.  
  
Here I sit, a wraith as frail and as fragile as forgotten cobwebs. My misty form is as insubstantial as the dreams you have, the dreams in which I live and breathe and laugh and cry. I dream too sometimes.  
  
"It's hard to go, but now's the time,  
With loving arms I intertwine.  
There will be times I miss you so,  
It's hard to leave but I must go."  
  
I wish only that I'd been able to say goodbye to you all. The first many of you knew was the reports the next day. Jack, staggering in still covered in blood - my blood. Paramedics, clipped faces, tight lips, pinched cheeks. It wasn't just the cold that made them that way. Death walks beside them daily, and they always know when he will choose to make himself known. Oh they try to fight it, but they always know. I could see it in Jack's eyes as he tried to get me to stay. I want to tell him I tried too. I didn't want to go, but what choice did I have?  
  
I wanted to tell him not to dwell on revenge; I wanted to tell him it wasn't Charlie Driscoll. I wanted to be working alongside him while he discovered who was really responsible; I wanted to have a drink with him in the pub after work. I still do. It's funny how you miss the most incongruous things.  
  
"I won't look back along the way,  
It only makes me want to stay.  
With every step I know I'll find  
A different loved one on my mind."  
  
My loved ones, all of you. Friends so deeply cherished and respected. Did I ever tell you how much I cared for you? I don't think so. You knew though, you all did. Helen and Jack and Mick and Taylor and Jeff and Gavin and Tommy and Frank...  
  
Frank. Best friend, companion, partner, beloved. I long to feel the rush of the wind in my hair as I stand beside you on the deck of the Footloose. I long to feel the harsh sting of the salt spray on my face and neck; how deeply I crave the sharp smell of the ocean, the chapped lips, the sunburn.  
  
How deeply I crave to hear your laugh beside me and now that when I turn around you'll be there. I pray to see the light dancing in your eyes as you look at me with that special look of love, amusement and adoration. You always knew how much I loved you, but you were content to wait. How I cheated you. You will wait, but I can never come. Forces pulled me away, pull me away still, until I will remain only as a distant shadow in the minds of those who live, a memory, a fragment of one who was.  
  
Life goes on, and you must all go with it. These are different paths we walk, my friends, you and I, insurmountable the walls which divide us.  
  
"Without my friends here by my side,   
My destiny will be my guide.  
It's hard to leave the ones you love  
Though other stars may shine above"  
  
It's pulling me even now. I find it harder and harder to watch you, the living, go on with your lives. You grieve now, but you'll recover. You cannot dwell within the abode of the dead.  
  
I cannot abide within the abode of the living.  
  
"Yet I can hope within my song  
That after all it won't be long.  
But it is now I feel the pain,  
I may not see you all again.  
There will be times I miss you so,  
It's hard to leave but I must go."  
  
Will you remember me in ten years time? In twenty? Thirty? Fifty? Will the fabric that was Rachel Goldstein be torn and dissolute upon the wind, a name upon a file, a fragment in a loved one's memory? A memory that will be cherished but ultimately forgotten, like the teddy bears you promised you'd always love and keep forever. Where are those lonely toys now? In a second hand bin in a store? Locked up in dusty attics awaiting children or grandchildren, or even moulding lost upon a rubbish heap?  
  
I have no great hopes for you, my friends. You would protest, I know, I can almost hear your sweet voices raised once more in argument against me, but I understand. It is the human nature to put away death like a heavy blanket in the midst of summer. Life cannot dwell where there is death, and the living cannot dwell in the realms of the dead.  
  
The dead cannot walk the realms of the living. Goodbye, my friends.   
  
"There will be times I miss you so,  
It's hard to leave but I must go."  
  
THE END  
  
Just another quick fic about Rachel's death. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE be good little sugarplumlets and send me feedback, I'll put in a good word with the birthday fairy for you. I've got contacts, didn't you know?  
  
Email: avatar_31@angelfire.com  



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